NATO

...As delegates gathered in Egypt’s resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the Arab League last weekend, nearly half of its member states were at the same time openly engaged in an aerial blitz on one of the League’s weakest countries – Yemen. Far from issuing any misgiving, or appeal for restraint, the League fully endorsed the onslaught on Yemen and even went on to call for a new «unified military force» to repeat the action in other countries where a «security risk» is deemed. This is a cart blanche for further foreign military interventions bypassing the United Nations Security Council...

Last December President Poroshenko submitted a bill to the parliament on ending the country's non-aligned status. The bill was voted into law, the status was abandoned. NATO membership was declared to be a national priority... Ukrainian social networks and media often mention Serbia’s plans to join the North Atlantic alliance when it comes to discussing the Ukraine-NATO relationship. On March 24, Serbia marks the 16th anniversary of NATO bombings. This is the time to remember what happened then. Perhaps these reminiscences will cool down the Ukraine’s enthusiasm towards the idea of «Euro Atlantic integration»...

IMF loans ostensibly to a bankrupt Ukrainian state in fact pay private armies espousing extreme right-wing nationalism under the control of Ukrainian oligarchs. The rapid rise of overt neonazis through Ukraine’s main political parties and the integration of known fascists into key state positions is no accident.

Just for once, let us try this argument with an open mind, employing arithmetic and geography and going easy on the adjectives. Two great land powers face each other. One of these powers, Russia, has given up control over 700,000 square miles of valuable territory. The other, the European Union, has gained control over 400,000 of those square miles. Which of these powers is expanding?

NATO’s Operation Atlantic Resolve paced ahead this week with the latest arrival of more US military forces in the Baltic region. Under the guise of defending eastern Europe from «Russian aggression», more than 100 Abrams tanks and Bradley armoured personnel carriers rolled into Latvia. Last month, a similar motorised display of military support was deployed in Estonia – in the town of Narva – with American flags flown by the US Army’s Second Calvary Regiment just 300 metres from the Russian border...

The political and military maneuvers now going on in the Ukraine have the potential of escalating out of control. If we don't understand the actual reality that has brought about this crisis there is no hope of being able to prevent this escalation. In order to understand this reality we must refrain from simple minded finger pointing at one side or the other and assigning complete responsibility for the crisis to one of the parties in the dispute, although one side may be disproportionately responsible.

Is the defence of world heritage sites in Iraq the new «responsibility to protect» doctrine to justify Western intervention in the geo-strategically important region? The timing coincides with renewed admonitions from the United States and Saudi Arabia for a coalition of ground forces to defeat the Islamic State network in Iraq and Syria – and just when Iraqi and Syrian forces appear to be decisively pushing back the extremists in both countries...

The fabrications of NATO’s top commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, have driven a wedge between Germany and the United States that could lead to a collapse of the Atlantic Alliance. According to the German news magazine, Der Spiegel, Breedlove has repeatedly sabotaged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine by spreading “dangerous propaganda” that is misleading the public about Russian “troop advances on the border, (and) the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks.” But while the unusually critical article singles out Breedlove for his hyperbolic exaggerations of so-called Russian aggression, the real purpose of the Spiegel piece is to warn Washington that EU leaders will not support a policy of military confrontation with Moscow.

...The ownership capital of the US Federal Reserve in relation to the value on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is just 1.3 per cent. And this symbolic capital is not represented by gold or anything else of actual value, but by electronic records. It is clichéd financial black magic. From the point of view of the capital adequacy ratios developed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for ordinary (commercial) banks (Basel II, Basel III), the US Federal Reserve System is completely bankrupt...

01.04.2015

Valentin KATASONOV

D.Sc. (Economics), Economist and the chairman of the S.F. Sharapov Russian Economic Society